Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

racial and ethnic caricature both dangerously insipid and useful to
merchants. Blacks, for example, were used to identify certain food staples
because on the plantation they were either cooks or picked similar crops in
the field. Playing off skin color, they were also used to advertise soap
products, like the Pears Soap ad showing a black child being scrubbed so
thoroughly that he turned white. Images of the “noble savage” adorned
patent medicines and tobaccos, the former because they were hyped as
Indian remedies and the latter because Indians grew the weed. Although
the noble savage was not as denigrating as other racial caricatures, it was,
nevertheless, a false stereotype that oversimplified the plurality of Native
American tribes and nations. While caricatured Jews, Italians, and Irish
were not as gainfully employed as trademarks, they appeared often on
“soft-sell” trade cards that showed generic vignettes on the front side with
more specific advertising copy on the back, and were given away with
merchandise. Usually in these often comical scenes, hooked-nosed Jews
were shown with pawnshop balls, Italians were organ grinders, and Irish
had simian characteristics.
Some historians argue that racial and ethnic stereotypes represent
early indigenous American humor. With the different waves of
immigration each new group threatened the previous one, making hostility
inevitable. Humor was a means of letting off steam. By extension, product
identification was an even more widespread means of assimilation. Yet over
a long period of use graphic symbols come to represent certain truths. Such
is the case with racial and ethnic stereotypes. Artists who simplify, distort,
and exaggerate physical or behavioral characteristics have significantly
influenced popular perception. Early American myths of race and ethnicity
developed, in part, from the popular arts. While contemporary graphic
artists and designers are more inclined to understand the ramifications of
their work, the lessons of the not-so-distant past underscore the potential
power of graphic design. The Darkie controversy proved that the strength
of stereotypes must not be underestimated.